Please use this forum to share ideas, materials, and methods for teaching about Asia that are appropriate for middle school classes. Please also note the social studies, literature, and other discipline-specific threads in the "Asia in My Classroom" forum.

Barbie was originally produced in the Taishan district of New Taipei City (Wikipedia article). Mattel produced Barbies there 1967-1987. It subsequently relocated production to China. Here's a 2011 article about attempts to revive the memory of Barbie and doll clothes production and more.

Thanks for posting this information! I am sure my girls will love it. I was wondering about The Display of Dolls that Sei Shonagon mentions in her Pillow Book. I think it is in relation to Tale of Genji, but I am not sure. Anyone have any background on this? Dr. Dube???

We looked at bunraku puppets a little in class today. Here is the Youtube video I use in my class. I am sure there are other really good ones out there in addition to this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV938f46Wpg

I found this article very interesting regarding global marketing because it directly relates to our International Marketing Class. It is hard for me to imagine a six story building in China dedicated to Barbie. I agree with the statement in the article, “To succeed in dynamic markets such as China and India, managers need to learn rapidly what and how to localize—while avoiding the risk of catastrophic failure from inevitable mistakes.” When Wal-Mart entered China in 1996, it experimented with different store formats to figure out which would have the greatest customer appeal. However, there is a lower-risk for a multi-brand retailer such as Wal-Mart than for a single-brand retailer such as Barbie. Coca-Cola understands the balance between localization-globalization. While Coke is pretty much a globally accepted product, most of the company's sales outside the U.S. come from products and brands created locally for the unique needs and desires of local customers. According to this article, emerging markets such as China and India are changing at three to four times the pace of developed markets. This means that today's perfect blend of localization and globalization could easily become obsolete three years from now.edited by mjones on 8/13/2011